


i don't think that i can handle this right now

by breadpoetsociety (orphan_account)



Series: voltron writing challenges week 2k17 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Insecurity, M/M, Voltron Writing Challenge Week 2k17, lance is sad and insecure and i love him, this is just me making lance sad so i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:18:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9864617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/breadpoetsociety
Summary: It honestly felt like a waste of time being homesick at this point. He didn’t like to think about how foreign the Castle still felt, even after months– how many months?– of living in it.Everyone else made their rooms their own, but Lance still left his barren, the only sign of life being mussed bedsheets and clothes hanging on the wire. Like a hotel room. Temporary.Right?voltron writing challenges week day 2: something you want in s3





	

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from bo burnham's "can't handle this (kanye rant):"
> 
> "I don't think that I can handle this right now  
> Look at them, they're just staring at me  
> Like, "come and watch the  
> Skinny kid with a steadily declining mental health  
> And laugh as he attempts  
> To give you what he cannot give himself."

Lance wanted to forget about today. 

Long training. Long battle. Long silences. Long faces from everyone at the very long mission briefing. Major points being: 

Lotor still wasn’t dead. 

Lotor, by some miracle, refused to die.

(The miracle’s name was Lance.)

Yeah. Today needed to end as soon as possible.

Time to try to wash it all away, and start again or die trying. Lance admitted the second option was honestly sounding pretty appealing by this point. Lance shook his head, trying to clear it of that tenacious cobwebby thought. He stepped under the stream and just stood there, allowing the water to do most of the work. 

Lance felt something clutch within his chest, a nameless, withering feeling. He closed his eyes only to see the tired face of Keith. Always fucking Keith. Always staring, never looking. 

“Fucking christ,” He murmured, leaning his forehead against the shower wall, watching droplets race down across the colorless tiles. He imagined the rest of the Castle’s crew standing around him. They stare in his mind blankly– no concern, just a disjointed disinterest. Even in his mind, he couldn’t escape Keith’s eyes boring a hole into him.

“Hey, everyone, come and watch the skinny kid with a steadily declining mental health,” Lance felt his words reflected back at him. He sighed, shook his head, almost nuzzling into the stone of the shower wall. “He’s trying to give you what he cannot give himself.”

Palms push his back against wet tile. The shower was too small for Lance to extend his arms all the way. He stared down, watching the water run down his tan chest now, drops catching on the little hairs around his navel. It was so scalding it felt cold.

Without even touching his soap, Lance slammed the shower handle to the other side and grabbed his towel, moving slowly but deliberately. The bathroom was completely silent now– no noises of creaky pipes or music from another room, or the distant sounds of a PlayStation from downstairs.

It honestly felt like a waste of time being homesick at this point. He didn’t like to think about how foreign the Castle still felt, even after months– how many months?– of living in it.

Everyone else made their rooms their own, but Lance still left his barren, the only sign of life being mussed bedsheets and clothes hanging on the wire. Like a hotel room. Temporary. 

Right?

“I can’t handle this right now,” Lance said flatly to his reflection, all tired skin and dull eyes. He swiped a hand through his hair, water flinging onto the mirror. “Change the subject.”

To what? His brain barbed back at him. Lance just shook his head and tried to ignore how his hands shook while rubbing lotion into his stubbly cheeks. His long fingers traced his jaw, down his neck, feeling the stress that flowed under his skin. 

He tried to forget today. He tried to forget today. He wanted to forget today. But suddenly his brain is inundated with yellow and he can’t not think.

So he thought of Lotor, wide shoulders and flowing hair, and imagining his silken voice again. Assuring him he’d have everything he could dream of, murmuring sweet promises into the shell of his ear, swearing honor and glory and a place and a purpose if he followed him.

Sure, there’d be a catch. But there’d probably be more noise around a Galran ship than this castle. Lance rubbed a towel roughly against his face, somehow disappointed that nothing changed when the fabric was removed. He thought of the team, and how they would get by without him. 

Well enough, his brain supplied. Seventh wheel. 

“Stop it,” he hissed through his teeth and shook his head forcefully. His hands clutched the stone sink under him, and he tried not to think for a moment. Tried to just let his mind wander somewhere that wouldn’t make his stomach turn in revulsion or cower and cringe. 

Lotor’s offer would always be tempting, a noose around his mind, loose enough to breathe. Competing with the blue bayard in hand. 

It wouldn’t be worth it. But this wasn’t either.

**Author's Note:**

> i want lance's insecurities to actually be dealt with more than just a one off line @ shiro. and i want some good lotor content and for lance to be shown that he has value and. the team to have to learn the hard way that he does. and. ahhhhh. i could rant longer. 
> 
> come yell with me about what i want from s3 on tumblr @ breadpoetsociety and twitter @ breadpoetsociet


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